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by uslic001 4 days ago
Vernor Vinge wrote a book that had this as part of the plot.

The book you are looking for is Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge. Published in 2006, it features a fictional undertaking called the Librareome Project.

Facebook ·Artificial Intelligence News Key Details from the Novel The Process: Physical library books are fed into industrial machines that shred the pages and blast them through a camera tunnel at high speeds. The Technology: High-resolution cameras photograph the flying paper shreds, and software uses the unique tear marks to piece the text back together (similar to shotgun sequencing in genetics). The Conflict: The story depicts public protests and pushback from people who want physical, analog books preserved rather than violently digitized and destroyed.